Where the mayor makes his own malts

When Martin, Amund, and I were invited to visit Roar to explore the
local beer style stjørdalsøl Roar figured that he might as well make
use of the three visiting beer "experts," and have us do a set of
talks for
the local home brewing association. Which
we of course happily agreed to do, even though this is an association
at least as much for modern home brewers as for the traditional
brewers. (This is the third part about the
Stjørdalen visit in January 2016.)

They'd set it up as a rather grand affair, and the mayor himself
came by to open the evening. I was a bit surprised by this, until the
mayor started talking. He said a few words about the cultural
importance of the local brewing, and then added that "Usually, when I
do something like this I give the organizers flowers. But in this case
I thought beer would be more suitable." At which point he took out a
bottle and handed it to the chairman of the brewer's association. It
turned out that the mayor is also a farmhouse brewer, and since this
is Stjørdal, he of course makes his own malts, too. His father was a
maltster and brewer, too.

The mayor ended his introduction by saying he really wanted to stay
and hear the talks, but that he had a previous engagement. That turned
out to be the annual brewing competition of
the
Centre Party in Stjørdal, where all the beers, of course, are
traditional stjørdalsøl with home made malts. That tells you quite a
bit about how engrained the brewing is in the local culture.

In fact, my only older source for the local brewing is the local
history of the area, published in many volumes by Jon Leirfall, from
1968 onwards. And Jon Leirfall was of course also a member of the
Centre Party, in fact one of the most prominent members the party has
ever had.

The county coat of arms

In 1983 Stjørdal county wanted a coat of arms, and while the
eventual choice was a lindworm, a beer mug was proposed by Arne Stuberg, who was of
course also a Centre Party member. The beer mug proposal was debated
in all seriousness in the county council, before the lindworm was
chosen. (A poll a month later showed the population as being 80%
against the lindworm. How many favoured the beer mug is not recorded.)

Once the mayor was finished talking there was a short break, which
Martin made good use of. He asked the mayor whether perhaps we could
taste the leftovers from the Centre Party competition. Sure, the mayor
said, of course we could. So we made an appointment to come pick them
up the next day.

Martin speaking

Then it was time for our talks, where the key point we were making
was that stjørdalsøl is actually a unique thing in the beer world, and
that it's extremely important that people in Stjørdal keep brewing it,
because if they don't the world of beer is going to lose something
irreplaceable.

To say that this was well received would be an understatement. The
local stjørdalsøl has not really been very highly regarded in the
area. Later that evening a local commercial brewery told me that
they'd never tried to make a stjørdalsøl because many locals are
deeply skeptical of this type of beer, so they assumed it wouldn't
sell. Now, suddenly, "experts" from outside came visiting to tell the
brewers that not only is their beer good, but it's a cultural treasure
of the very highest order, something unique in the world of beer. We
were quite popular that evening.

The next morning we drove by the farm where the Centre Party
brewing competition had been. Apparently the mayor had placed third
this year, which he was very pleased with, as last year he'd been in
tenth place. "And I really deserved that," he said. It turned out
they had left the four best bottles for us.

The mayor's beer

Later that evening we tasted them at Roar's place. They were
recognizably similar to the ones we'd had the night before, smoky,
with red berries, some plum and jam flavours, and in some cases an
ash-like flavour. One beer was lightly acidic, but still very nice.
The ones that came fourth, third, and second were all good, but the
winner was kind of thin, and dry, and lacking in character.

Roar revealed that this bottle we had received with the cap loose.
He'd tried closing the cap, but after an hour there was a clear
fizzing sound when he opened it again. So probably the beer had
fermented in the bottle over night, losing its sweetness and some of
the flavour. Very likely the reason is that these beers have such
short fermentation times that there is still residual sugar left when
the beer is kegged. We will be returning to this point later on.